Did crafting writs get nerfed or am I crazy?

Stilliko

When 1.6 came out the crafting writs got a big boost. I daily do the enchanting, alchemy, and provisioning writs. Enchanting and Alchemy were giving me surveys probably every 2/3 or 3/4 times. It was great! Provisioning was giving me purple crafting components every time.

Then in the last week that all went away. I'm getting a survey maybe 1/4 times, and haven't gotten any purple provisioning components all week.

I haven't seen anything in the patch notes about them nerfing this, or seen any talk about it. Am I crazy, was I really luck and not I'm really not? Anyone else notice this? Whats up?

Zlater

Heard that they were stealth nerfed. It's sort of disappointing because it takes a lot of mats to do often. It would be nice to hear an official statement on this.

Valor

Perhaps they were, the last one I did granted me an Almandine. That's it. One Almandine.

FooWasHere

I don't have many samples to go from, but since the last patch I've had meagre alchemy writs (=no survey), but rich equipment writs (=yellow temper) and pretty normal enchanting writs.
The provisioning writs have generally been without purple ingredients, but with not even a weeks worth (on two 6/6 VRs) I can't really say if it's bad luck yet, but I've raised my eyebrow.

SLy_Kyti

They are way worse than pre patch. Maxed crafter's use so much high value mats and get a white belt and sardonyx in return. Have taken dated pictures for a future complaint. Its not RNG. Its crappolza.

Edited to add PS
p.s. as far as sample sizes go, I have 2 accounts, 10 crafter's, 4 maxed in everything, 6 maxed on at least one or more writ specialties. I have never, ever gotten a gold refining.ever. that's prolly bad RNG. I now get nothing above a green.

Kalman

It's just poor luck. I have runs where a couple of days i'll just jack then next i'll get lots of gold/purple (for provisioning)

neueregel

this was surely cut way back... I get no where near the surveys i got before.

Nestor

I still get the occasional Survey, like 1 in 4. It has always been at this rate.

UrQuan

I actually feel like I'm getting more surveys from writs than I did before... Probably just RNG. The drop rate has probably stayed consistent.

Jayne_Doe

Stilliko wrote: »

Provisioning was giving me purple crafting components every time.

I barely ever receive purple provisioning mats, so the fact that you received them everyday prior to the patch suggests to me that you were extremely lucky.

For me, the writs seem to be about the same. One day, I got lucky and received both a Kuta and a survey - most days, it's just a soul gem and a green glyph. One day, I even received a Tempering Alloy and a survey, and the survey yielded one fortified nirncrux! Most days, just a trait stone and a white piece of equipment (i.e. junk).

Really, do they actually play the game and do the writs themselves? If they did, they'd suffer the same disappointment and then they'd do something about the rewards. Seriously - how many times do I have to provide a cooked recipe, only to receive that exact recipe as a "reward." But, that's not as bad as using 80+ mats only to receive a Quartz.

I think that we should always receive (1) a trait stone, (2) a piece of equipment (with the chance for it to be of higher quality than white and a chance for it to contain a trait other than Intricate or Ornate), (3) a green temper (with the chance for higher level tempers). After all, alchemy writs always provide 3 solvents plus 3 each of two reagents. And even enchanting writs always provide at least one soul gem and a green glyph (which I think should also have a chance for being blue or higher). And provisioning writs always provide a recipe and four (I think) different ingredients, with a chance for purple.

But, for some reason, equipment writs only guarantee that you receive one thing - a trait stone - though much of the time, I still also get the junk equipment. For the investment of mats needed to complete the equipment writs, the reward is so imbalanced in comparison to the consumable writs. But, I know this complaint has been made ad nauseam and nothing has been changed.

Robbmrp

I did three yesterday, clothing, blacksmithing and woodworking. I got one survey and two gold tempers so not bad imo. That was after yesterdays patch so if there was an issue, the patch may have corrected it.

Nestor

I have grabbed a few equipment crafting writs, and then I look at all the stuff they want, and how many mats it will take to do them. I then abandon them.

Consumable Writs, you always get back more than you put in. Well, Enchanting goes from on par to what you put in to much more. I mean, sure you always using up a Ta to do one of those, but they are Ta's, we have plenty. I almost always keep my Potency and Essence counts stable over time. Alchemy and Provisioning, always get more. Plus I get new recipes everyday.

UrQuan

Nestor wrote: »

I have grabbed a few equipment crafting writs, and then I look at all the stuff they want, and how many mats it will take to do them. I then abandon them.

If you can buy the materials you need for an equipment writ for less than the gold you'll get for turning in the writ, or if you happen to have a ton of those materials sitting around that you'll only vendor anyway, then it's worth doing them. If not, it's really not.

But yeah, the consumables writs are nice.

Jofish

Yeah, hang on to your consumable writs; but equipment writs?... bad investment...

Jofish

What ZOS is trying to do is burn all the wood, metal and cloth/skins because there is just too much of it... instead of frustrating us with fewer nodes they decided to frustrate us with meaningless writs... bad play, but whatcha gonna do?

Fyrakin

Well, this was the main reason I stopped doing them on daily basis. After a week of fruitless turn-ins I decided that this is not worth time spent.

Haxnschwammer

I do (or did) the writs almost daily. Since 1.6 I had 1 blacksmithing, 1 woodworking and maybe 4 clothier surveys.
No nirncrux of course. I found 3 by occasionaly farming nodes.
At the same time I had like 10 enchantment and 10 alchemist surveys. I received several Kutas in that time but
no golden stuff from equipement writs.
Additionaly I got a lot of unknown repices the last days.

I_killed_Vivec

I had 4 surveys from 6 writs today.

Only blacksmithing was in Upper Craglorn, no nirnhorn. No Kutas. No legendary tempers. Nothing worth mentioning from refining.

Similar story yesterday (though only 1 survey and one "reward" gave me Sardonix).

Maybe it's RNG, but it certainly seems that writ rewards have been nerfed since the release of 2.0.

And maybe it's RNG again, but refining seems nerfed too - a stack of over 100 raw nightwood gave me 70 sanded and nothing else.

SpAEkus

Even when I do get a Enchanting Survey, the RNG is so low that I can still get 6 Ta in Craglorn from a level IX survey. So it is pretty much RNG divided by RNG.

That shouldn't be allowed to happen even under RNG. Supposedly you get rewarded for completing the writ, I can harvest regular rune nodes if all I want is Ta.

technohic

I do woodworking, clothing and blacksmith. Really not worth the payout when I can often get a repair kit and a trait material, usually for well fitted and be left with that. if I do get a survey; it is a time sink where its not all the materials I used with some lower leveel and I could have spent that time farming mobs and resources to get the equivalent gold, loot I can deconstruct, and raw mats from resources in the area all guaranteed and with that loot, I am getting all the lesser refining materials. It's just not worth it.

Should be a minimum you should receive of at least a blue mat with a higher chance of purple or gold; maybe not even as resource intensive to do.

Ashtaris

Seems like the equipment writs are getting to be a total joke. I rarely receive anything in those writs of any real value and I'm starting to run out of the higher level crafting materials like Grain Solvents, Tempering Alloys, etc. I was getting far more of those from my hirelings than I'm getting from doing the writs or refining raw materials. If this keeps up, I'll be back to wearing all Blue armor and the prices of the higher level mats will skyrocket.

bellanca6561n

Again this is hopelessly anecdotal because none of us can see under the hood here.

The problem with changing something in an online game is that, for every actual change you make, players will see ten more.

And for everything broken in a game - say, one set bonus not working - players will cease to trust other similar systems.

I do the writs for enchanting and the building crafts each day on both servers. Before the update I'd average one gold enhancement and one survey for every ten writs. It's a bit better now but not noticeably for me.

But I was doing lots of tough (for me) group content then and was doing them as much for the repair kits as anything else.

You get 600 or so gold per survey and each building craft takes a stack of high end materials to complete. These range from 9-12 gold per material piece, though the price of nightwood really SPIKED there for a bit. But so have the prices for gold items. Get one Kuta, for example, and that pays for all of your writs the next day.

In short I see it as going well when I break even on it. HOWEVER, it as originally intended to follow the Bulk Order Deed system of Ultima Online, one of the finest - though a bit complex - crafting systems in gaming. It serves two purposes:

1. To provide an advancement path for crafters.

2. To provide crafters with an avenue to acquire valuable game items that only crafters can get. This is, of course, from the game that brought you the Rockstar Master Blacksmith. You needed player crafters, online and available to players, for the game to work originally.

Sorry to ramble on a a bit but I don't see the writ system improving until crafting does. I do think the low end outcome needs improvement. And I do think crafting writs should be able to drop those one shot repair kits that they sell in the Crown Store.

technohic

bellanca6561n wrote: »

Again this is hopelessly anecdotal because none of us can see under the hood here.

The problem with changing something in an online game is that, for every actual change you make, players will see ten more.

And for everything broken in a game - say, one set bonus not working - players will cease to trust other similar systems.

I do the writs for enchanting and the building crafts each day on both servers. Before the update I'd average one gold enhancement and one survey for every ten writs. It's a bit better now but not noticeably for me.

But I was doing lots of tough (for me) group content then and was doing them as much for the repair kits as anything else.

You get 600 or so gold per survey and each building craft takes a stack of high end materials to complete. These range from 9-12 gold per material piece, though the price of nightwood really SPIKED there for a bit. But so have the prices for gold items. Get one Kuta, for example, and that pays for all of your writs the next day.

In short I see it as going well when I break even on it. HOWEVER, it as originally intended to follow the Bulk Order Deed system of Ultima Online, one of the finest - though a bit complex - crafting systems in gaming. It serves two purposes:

1. To provide an advancement path for crafters.

2. To provide crafters with an avenue to acquire valuable game items that only crafters can get. This is, of course, from the game that brought you the Rockstar Master Blacksmith. You needed player crafters, online and available to players, for the game to work originally.

Sorry to ramble on a a bit but I don't see the writ system improving until crafting does. I do think the low end outcome needs improvement. And I do think crafting writs should be able to drop those one shot repair kits that they sell in the Crown Store.

The thing with UO is you had mountains to mine and every tree was harvestable. You killed something, you got skins no matter what, not a chance to loot it. And you could pick cotton or cut wool off of sheep. Resources were much more abundant IMO. Then crafting was way more powerful at a time when runic tools were what you earned from much larger bulk order deeds than here. Think they have since gotten to a more loot based system now.

BenevolentBowd

I have noticed that since my enchanter hit adventuring level 30, he is getting quality runes (Kuta's) from writs where he hadn't gotten any before.

SpAEkus

What is "adventuring" level 30? Is that "character" level? My Enchanter writs are all on a VR5 character with max Enchanter on all passives and he still is getting 6 Ta from a writ.

Tarukmockto

SpAEkus wrote: »

What is "adventuring" level 30? Is that "character" level? My Enchanter writs are all on a VR5 character with max Enchanter on all passives and he still is getting 6 Ta from a writ.

Yes, but at least you are getting 6 of them!

Valmond

today, i got 1 jade from blacksmithing writ box.
1, Jade...

For a writ that cost around 100 ingots.
Ridiculous.

Nestor

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

I have grabbed a few equipment crafting writs, and then I look at all the stuff they want, and how many mats it will take to do them. I then abandon them.

If you can buy the materials you need for an equipment writ for less than the gold you'll get for turning in the writ, or if you happen to have a ton of those materials sitting around that you'll only vendor anyway, then it's worth doing them. If not, it's really not.

But yeah, the consumables writs are nice.

Well, I had a bunch of Nightwood (that one always makes me giggle for some reason) and Void Cloth so I decided to grab a WW and Clothing Writ. Used up 100 or so refined mats on each writ. Got back one gold Temper, and a about 48 raw mats from the survey that was no where near a Wayshrine and I had to pick a careful path to get to it.

Anyway, totally underwhelming. I try these things every month or so in the misplaced hope that the writ will actually reward me rather than reduce my inventory. Sure, I could have sold the temper to buy back the mats I used, but how is that better?

Valmond

Nestor wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

I have grabbed a few equipment crafting writs, and then I look at all the stuff they want, and how many mats it will take to do them. I then abandon them.

If you can buy the materials you need for an equipment writ for less than the gold you'll get for turning in the writ, or if you happen to have a ton of those materials sitting around that you'll only vendor anyway, then it's worth doing them. If not, it's really not.

But yeah, the consumables writs are nice.

Well, I had a bunch of Nightwood (that one always makes me giggle for some reason) and Void Cloth so I decided to grab a WW and Clothing Writ. Used up 100 or so refined mats on each writ. Got back one gold Temper, and a about 48 raw mats from the survey that was no where near a Wayshrine and I had to pick a careful path to get to it.

Anyway, totally underwhelming. I try these things every month or so in the misplaced hope that the writ will actually reward me rather than reduce my inventory. Sure, I could have sold the temper to buy back the mats I used, but how is that better?

I'd probably make more money from buying raw mats, refining them, and selling refined mats and tempers i find.
Actually bought a stack of raw wood earlier this week, got 2 gold tempers from refining and did writs for 2 days with the wood.

Atleast food writs give me plenty of mats back, and occasional recipy, for little to no time spent.
I the writs everyday on my sorc, and then spend 30 minutes to an hour farming mats for the next day (and i'm still getting to a point where i need to buy the mats occasionally because it's just not worth my time to farm them).

Rewards need to go up in gear writs, or crafting amounts need to go way down, don't care which.

Woolenthreads

Nestor wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

I have grabbed a few equipment crafting writs, and then I look at all the stuff they want, and how many mats it will take to do them. I then abandon them.

If you can buy the materials you need for an equipment writ for less than the gold you'll get for turning in the writ, or if you happen to have a ton of those materials sitting around that you'll only vendor anyway, then it's worth doing them. If not, it's really not.

But yeah, the consumables writs are nice.

I try these things every month or so in the misplaced hope that the writ will actually reward me rather than reduce my inventory. Sure, I could have sold the temper to buy back the mats I used, but how is that better?

*confesses* I'm using the writs now to reduce my inventory whenever I've built up to much equipment material simply from hirelings. I suppose I could just make stuff and sell it but I'm too lazy

Zimnel

Today's provisioning writ:



And my woodworker one got a golden temper so, I don't see the nerf : )